Remembering a Legend: A Conversation with Jeannie Schulz for the Home Entertainment release of Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Movie
Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the beloved “Peanuts” gang make their big-screen debut, like they’ve never been seen before, in state of the art 3D animation. Snoopy, the world’s most lovable beagle – and flying ace – embarks upon his greatest mission as he takes to the skies to pursue his arch-nemesis The Red Baron, while his best pal, Charlie Brown, begins his own epic quest.
From the imagination of Charles M. Schulz and the creators of the ICE AGE films, SNOOPY AND CHARLIE BROWN: THE PEANUTS MOVIE will prove that every underdog has his day.
THE PEANUTS MOVIE, starring Charlie Brown and his loyal dog Snoopy, is the first big screen CG film based on the indelible comic strip by Charles M. Schulz. It’s a hilarious and heartwarming animated adventure that is thoroughly immersive, staying true to Schulz’s art, and bringing the legendary cartoonist’s work to life in 3D.
All Charles Schulz’s beloved characters appear, from Lucy and Linus to Pigpen and Peppermint Patty.
One of the people who knew the artist best, his wife, Jeannie Schulz, sits down in Santa Rosa, California, where the cartoonist lived and worked, to discuss the film and the man himself...
What led to the family decision to go ahead with a major feature film based on your husband’s comic strip?
It was a combination of things, all the planets aligning at the right time. Blue Sky Studios had been showing us (the family) the work they had been doing for several years, including DR. SEUSS’S HORTON HEARS A WHO!, and they had proved to us that they could take an author’s treasured, very personal work and turn it into a film without fiddling with it or taking away anything from it. The right time for THE PEANUTS MOVIE just seemed to come along. Then little by little, people were writing contracts and we were actually moving along and the film was being made.
Did you have any qualms?
Well yes and that’s why it took so long. We did several television shows after my husband died and there were mixed feelings about how they fared. So there were qualms. It was the sincerity and skill of Steve Martino that really made the difference. He put us all at ease so we knew that this was going to be very true to Charles Schulz’s comic strip and would be respectful. Blue Sky, with Steve Martino as the director, became the perfect answer for us in terms of making a family feature film. Once we had moved forward with that, everybody was completely on board.
Can you discuss the main characters we meet in the movie?
There is Charlie Brown, who we call ‘the loveable loser.’ But he is a very good friend. Sparky would always say, ‘Charlie Brown is the kind of friend I’d like to have.’ He loves baseball, but has never won a baseball game, or so most people think. Actually his team did win a game once … when he wasn’t there! I think he got hit in the head and had to go to the hospital and the team won. Charlie Brown of course has a best friend, Snoopy. Snoopy fantasizes about being anything he wants to be. We would all like to be more like Snoopy. We would all love to be so uninhibited that we could be whatever we wanted to be. Lucy pops your bubble with all her screaming! Linus, of course, is philosophical. Sally’s silly, she is worried about everything and full of fears. She doesn’t want to go to kindergarten; she doesn’t want to go to camp. All the characters are in the film.
What appealed to Sparky about the relationship between children and their dogs?
Sparky had an obstreperous dog, Spike, who chased all the neighbourhood kids and scared them to death. But he was a wonderful dog at home, he was quite a memorable dog in the family. Also, boys and their dogs have featured in comic strips for years, for example if you look at THE LITTLE RASCALS and many American television shows. Sparky grew up with comic strips in which a dog was always a part of the gang of kids. The difference with Snoopy is that he is not a normal dog. Sparky once said that as soon as Snoopy took off and stood on his hind feet and began doing all the amazing things that he does, he could have drawn a comic strip just about Snoopy, because the dog gave him so many ideas.
What can you reveal about THE PEANUTS MOVIE?
It’s about Snoopy and the imaginary world he lives in, how he fantasized about being the Flying Ace. It is also the story of Charlie Brown and his pursuit of the Little Red-Haired Girl who moves into town and his unrequited love for her. The Little Red-Haired Girl is shown in the comic strip, but only in a silhouette, and she appears in some of the television shows. But in the new movie, they’ve actually created a beautiful little girl with perfect red hair and a perfect dress. All the familiar characters have something to do and to say in the film.
There’s an interesting story about your husband’s inspiration for the Little Red-Haired girl I believe?
She is based on a girl called Donna Johnson Wold who was a secretary and worked with Sparky in the fifties. They used to leave little notes for each other and he’d do little drawings for her. He actually coached the women’s baseball team because Donna played on it! He was in love with her and asked her to marry him but she married someone else. Because he didn’t recover from that for a long time, he put the character inspired by her into the comic strip: The Little Red-Haired Girl. Sparky had that sense of total failure and rejection and disappointment. But he did recover and become a happy husband!
How much of the insecurity, humanity and foibles of Charlie Brown are your husband’s do you think?
All the insecurities in the strip are his and I don’t think he ever got over them actually. Despite that insecurity, he did understand how much people loved his work and he appreciated the global reach of the comic strip. People would seek him out at the ice arena, which is very near the studio right here, and they would say, ‘oh I love your comic strip, I follow it every day.’ Or: ‘you led me to go into cartooning.’ So he understood that reach, but on another level he didn’t understand it. He remained the same person he always had been.
How much of Sparky was in the other characters?
He always said, ‘I am all the characters. I’m Charlie Brown. But, I also have Lucy in me. I’d love to be able to do all the things that Snoopy does in his fantasy world.’ He said, ‘I can be cranky like Lucy; I’m philosophical like Linus.’ He wasn’t messy like Pigpen though, that was his son Craig! (laughs). Craig was messy in those days, I don’t know about now!
How did he name his characters?
He was careful about naming characters because someone could come to him and say, ‘you named me in your comic strip, that’s me. And now you owe me something! ’ Charlie Brown was the name of a friend who he worked with at Art Instruction [the art school in Minnesota where Schulz studied and later taught]. Shermie was another good friend. Frieda was someone who worked at Art Instruction too. I think Lucy’s name just came out of the blue, but van Pelt [Lucy, Linus and Rerun’s last name] was inspired by an old army buddy. They didn’t have a last name originally.
How did your husband get the name Sparky?
It is a great name and nobody who knew him, except his teachers, ever called him Charles. Everyone called him Sparky. So if people come up to me and say ‘I used to play golf with your husband Charles’ I pretty much know that they might have played with him once but did not know him well. He said that when he was two days old in the hospital, an uncle came into the hospital and said, ‘by golly, we’re going to call him Sparky,’ after Spark Plug, the horse in the ‘Barney Google’ comic strip (by Billy DeBeck). That shows you the power of comics back in 1922. That horse had just appeared in the comic six months before. It had won a race and there was a lot of hoopla about it. If you look at the pictures of Spark Plug, he is a sway-backed horse with a yellow blanket. Sparky was born in November, so just five months after that horse hit the comic strip scene, it was in his family’s imagination so much that when his uncle said, ‘we’ll call him Sparky’ it stuck with his parents.
Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie Film Page | Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie Review
SNOOPY AND CHARLIE BROWN: THE PEANUTS MOVIE IS OUT NOW ON DIGITAL HD™ & ON BLU-RAY™ & DVD ON 30TH MAY, COURTESY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
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